C’è qualcuno al telefono che vuole parlare con te There is someone on the phone who wants to speak to you

Qualcosa

Qualcosa means ‘something’ or ‘anything’, and it can also also be written as two separate words: qualche cosa. Despite being constructed around the feminine singular word cosa (thing), qualcosa is masculine singular(otherwise life would be too simple), e.g.:

These blogs on the use of Italian are excellent. Thanks very much for them. For a not very advanced student I find them very useful.
However I have a question about

Nessuno ha saputo rispondere alla domanda
Nobody was able to answer the question

I would have translated it into English as ‘Nobody knew how to answer the question’. No big deal there – it means more or less the same. But that set me thinking about how I would see the word ”able” and immediately think to use ‘potere’. Would it be wrong to say

Nessuno ha potuto rispondere alla domanda ?

or perhaps

Nessuno ha riuscito rispondere alla domanda ?

or even

Nessuno ce l’ha fato a rispondere alla domanda
( I fear this might be the wrong way to use ‘farcela’, I’m not all that certain about how to use it properly).

This is a very interesting question that merits a blog of its own. However, in brief: we frequently use ‘sapere fare qualcosa’ to mean ‘to know how to do something’, for example ‘sai nuotare?’ do you know how to swim?’, or ‘can you swim?’ Therefore it isn’t necessary in Italian to explicitly say ‘to be able’ in this situation.
If you do want to say ‘to be able’ the best choice would be ‘nessuno è stato capace di rispondere all domanda’.
If you use ‘nessuno è riuscito a rispondere…..’ or ‘nessuno ce l’ha fatta a rispondere…’ you could either mean (a.) ‘no one knew…’, or (b.) ‘no one had the chance… (due to lack of time etc.)’
If you use, on the other hand, ‘nessuno ha potuto rispondere…’ you would be saying ‘no one had the possibility to reply to the question’ (due to lack of time, or some other circumstance).

Salve Bill, bella domanda! Rispondo in Inglese perchè può darsi che sia utile ad altri lettori.
The reason that we use ‘alcuni’ in this situation is because in Italian the word ‘people’ is implied but not expressed. In such neutral situations we use the masculine plural, e.g. ‘i ricchi hanno più opportunità dei poveri’, (the rich have more opportunities than the poor), meaning ‘la gente ricca ha più opportunità della gente povera’ (rich folk have more opportunities than poor folk).
In my English translation of ‘Alcuni pensano che la festa sia stata un successo’ you could omit the word ‘people’ and just say ‘Some think that the party was a success’.
If I had written ‘Alcune persone pensano che la festa sia stata un successo’ ‘alcune’ would have been an adjective and not a pronoun, and therefore must agree in gender and number with ‘persone’.
However, it is more common simply to use ‘alcuni’ to mean ‘some people’, e.g. ‘alcuni dicono che domani pioverà’ (some people say it’s going to rain tomorrow’).

Thanks for your speedy response, Serena.
I guess it’s one of those things I’ll just have to try and learn. It’s these little idiosyncrasies of a foreign language that are so interesting and yet are so difficult to learn.
I see also that I made (at least) three mistakes in my post. I should have known that riuscire takes essere in the passato prossimo. Also I might have written fatto instead of fato, but even that would have been wrong. Please can you say why it should be fatta? And I omitted the ‘a’ before the infinitive.

Hello Serena et al
i think i may have accidently stumbled into a very useful resource here. I am trying to learn Italian on my own as i don’t do well in a group and this in itself has very obvious dissadvantages – pronounciation techniques and correctiing mistakes to name but two.
I’ve also chosen to learn the language properly with all that entails rather than concentrate on touristy things like ordering un gelato e due cappucini – not that this wouldn’t be useful.
The thing is, i want this journey to be a labour of love, and 5 months into it i find myself struggling. I am trying to utilize several course books including the Transparent Language verb book which includes a CD of flash cards and audio clips. I have also discovered more free clips on their website that have helped but i didn’t expect to come across your blog. I hope
that you continue so that i can use yours and others comments to aid my own understanding of the language.

Salve Lillian, e benvenuta nel mio blog. I sympathize with your problem of trying to learn Italian in a class, groups don’t suit everyone, especially those who wants to delve a bit deeper than the usual stuff that students learn in classes. That’s one of the reasons why I write my blogs in the way that I do.
For example, in a few days there will be another ‘Colloquial Italian’ blog, in which I look at common words and expressions that are rarely taught in classes. These are the kinds of things that really confuse students when they have the shock of arriving in Italy thinking that they can speak Italian, and they hear something that they’ve never come across in their classes!
Certainly it is hard to learn on your own, as my (English) husband would tell you. He always had the same problem with classes because he is naturally an autodidatta (self teacher). His advice would be to immerse yourself in the language as if it were a type of music, take every opportunity to speak with native Italian speakers, listen to films in Italian, Italian pop music, e cosi via… It doesn’t matter if you only understand bits of it at the beginning, accustom your ear and your mind to the flows and rhythms of the language, and try and underpin it with a pretty sound understanding of the grammatical structure. Above all, try and visit Italia as often as possible!

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